Many welding processes result in weld joints with features inherently associated with the heat affected zone (“HAZ”). Some of these features are accepted as negligible by-products of the resulting weld joint. These by-products neither enhance nor reduce any particular characteristic of the weld joint.
On the other hand, weld joints and their associated features can also have undesirable defects, which may be detrimental to the strength, reliability, or overall longevity of the weld joint and the resulting welded structure. These defects may cause problems within the welded structure, and more particularly, such defects may include micro-cracks and other deviations in the welded structure adjoined by the weld joint. Micro-cracks may further propagate to a point that results in failure of the weld joint and/or other more catastrophic failure events.